Excerpt from So Many Stars by Caro De Robertis, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

What is Gender?

NELSON D'ALERTA PÉREZ: Who am I? Oh, a mix of many things. I'm awoman. I'm a man.

JOAN BENOIT: There's a spectrum.

MS BILLIE COOPER: I'm a much bigger, more intricate person than whatpeople tell me I am, or what people see in me.

FRESH "LEV" WHITE: The term dysphoria, for me, means that our societyhas a dysphoric idea that there are only two genders. I've never takenthat on. It's not mine.

DONNA PERSONNA: I'm my own universe.

C. NJOUBE DUGAS: Really, we're living in a nonbinary world.

VIVIAN VARELA: There is a queerdom. And we are part of it. All of us whoare queer. Being in the queerdom is accepting yourself for who youare, loving who you love, and letting yourself be loved.

CHINO SCOTT-CHUNG: I have had multiple identities and still do. As far asmy gender and sexuality, it has been a journey for me over the yearsand over time.

CRYSTAL MASON: When new things like they/them pronouns comeup, new queer language, I get excited about it because I feel like that'sa movement. I'm a forward looker. I know history, but I don't lovehistory for the looking back. I like history for its implications for thefuture.

If you lay under a night sky, not in the city, out in the woodssomewhere, you see the sky full of stars. So many. And you knowthere are so many more that are not even in your sight. I think aboutall those stars as possibilities. New words and new understandingsalso create possibility, which translates on a very micro level to, theremight be one less person who feels alone. I think these words, thesephrases, these pronouns, help create that space. You look up and yousee a million stars. You know some of those stars are what's possiblefor your life. For me, it's like creating stars. We create possibilitieswhen we create new words, and new understandings around thosewords.

FRESH "LEV" WHITE: When I do LGBTQ ally trainings, people are like,"What's with this alphabet, LGBTQIA?"And I'm like, "We're just working our way back towards human."

TINA VALENTÍN AGUIRRE: Gender can be art. We can be art. We are art.

TUPILI LEA ARELLANO: It is about being shape-shifters. We all do it in ourown way, but we are shape-shifters. That's a medicine. It's very powerfulif we know how to use it.

DONNA PERSONNA: I come preapproved. Are you looking for approval?Do you want acceptance? If I would like to get a mortgage for a house,then I might ask a bank for approval for a loan—but for you to likeme? No.

I feel at home. When I walk into a room, I own it, I own thatroom. See, that's self-acceptance. Self-love. Self-acceptance is the sexiestthing going around, everybody wants it.

I don't compare to anybody else. I'm unique, and I'm very happywith that. Gender, for me personally, is: who I am, that's the genderthat I am.

MS BILLIE COOPER: My gender is mine, personally. No one should evercome into anybody's space, or their life, and tell people their pronounsor their gender, what we should be called, what we need, orwhat they feel we need to be called. When I say female, or when I sayshe/her, it's my right.

It's my privilege to live my life as a senior Black trans woman, awoman of trans experience. I might not look like someone's mother,or their sister, or their aunt, but I will not let anyone come into my lifeand tell me I'm not a woman. Because I am a woman. I have alwaysbeen a woman, even before I knew I was a girl back in the day. I don'thave to look like what you perceive a woman to look like, America.It's all about respect.

ANDRÉS OZZUNA: I learned that I could create my own masculinity. Thatwas an important thing for me to realize. Because I couldn't act likesomething I wasn't, do things that—I don't know—that bros do, orwhatever. It doesn't come naturally, that's not the way I am, so I cando something else. It's about giving myself permission to create. It'sabout saying, "Well, I can be the man I want to be. I don't have to bethe man who was socialized as male."

Excerpted from So Many Stars by Caro De Robertis. Copyright © 2025 by Caro De Robertis. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.